Insurance is the last manual step in a process you automated everywhere else.
Underwriting is systematized. Docs are systematized. Then the file hits insurance and goes back to phone tag: "go get homeowners insurance" → a second application from scratch → quotes trickle in → proof gets emailed → someone uploads it by hand. On a Non-QM book it is worse: investor and foreign-national files need landlord and dwelling-fire coverage, carry odd data, and fit fewer carrier appetites. The messiest files wait the longest.
The borrower
- Gets a homework assignment at the worst possible moment of the move
- Retypes, into a second application, facts the loan file already holds
- Goes quiet, and the file goes quiet with them
The processor
- Owns a chase nobody counts: calls, follow-ups, "any word on the dec page?"
- Re-keys and uploads documents by hand, file after file
- Touches the same file again and again for zero underwriting value
The ops leader
- No screen shows which files are stuck on insurance
- Finds out when the closing date is already at risk
- Absorbs the delay as "just how insurance is"
A closing should not stall on a second application the borrower never knew they would need. The rest of this deck is one idea: start insurance the day the file can support it, and let it run in the background.